President Trump passed the two-year mark in his administration with a Cabinet filled with “acting” secretaries, raising concerns about the ability of agencies to implement policies effectively.
Acting secretaries currently helm three federal agencies: the Department of Defense, the Department of the Interior, and the Environmental Protection Agency. The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations is also a temporary stand-in, as is the director of the Office of Management and Budget. An acting attorney general ran the Justice Department until Thursday, when the Senate confirmed William Barr to head the agency on a permanent basis.
Even the president’s chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, is serving in an acting capacity.
“For this timing in an administration, at the two-year mark, it’s unprecedented,” Anne Joseph O’Connell, a professor at Stanford Law School, told the Washington Examiner. “But the modern appointment system is broken, and that was true before President Trump.”
Trump has not expressed any urgency to fill Cabinet vacancies with permanent agency chiefs — quite the opposite. “I like acting because I can move so quickly,” he told CBS News in an interview this month. “It gives me more flexibility.”
Turnover in a presidential administration is nothing new, but experts say the lack of permanent agency chiefs filters down through the departments.
“The problem with having acting officials or non-Senate confirmed people leading agencies is twofold,” Liz Hempowicz, director of public policy for the Project on Government Oversight, told the Washington Examiner. “One is that there is less accountability for that individual, and trickling down for the entire agency, without the Senate confirmation process.”
“The second big problem is when you think about the continuity of the agency, it’s not that an acting official is unqualified, but say they’re fully equipped for the job but they’re not there in a permanent capacity. It’s hard to set long-term priorities for the agencies and address systemic issues.”
Of the large departments currently lacking a permanent secretary, Trump has nominated permanent replacements for two, the EPA and the Department of the Interior. In both cases, deputy secretaries — Andrew Wheeler and David Bernhardt, respectively — took the helm of the agencies temporarily and were then picked by Trump to lead them permanently.
O’Connell noted that deputy secretaries have already been confirmed by the Senate and stepping in for the department chief is part of a deputy’s role. However, there is still uncertainty in their futures once they’re officially nominated to helm an agency.
“The deputies who are nominees, they’re not yet confirmed for the top job, so they’re operating in the shadow both of the Senate confirmation process — they don’t want to hurt their chances with confirmation —and acting in the shadow of this White House, where if they do something that displeases the president, they can be pulled,” O’Connell said.
At the Pentagon, the gap in permanent leadership has been cause for concern among Republican lawmakers and experts who track federal vacancies. After Defense Secretary Jim Mattis resigned, Patrick Shanahan, a former Boeing executive, was made acting secretary, a position he’s held since Jan. 1.
O’Connell said there has not been an acting defense secretary since 1989. Even in instances where presidents have split from their defense chiefs, the departing secretaries have remained in the role until the Senate confirmed a successor, she said.
“We don’t have a nomination, and that’s really striking,” O’Connell said. “That’s one of the most important positions the president fills with Senate confirmation. That’s the type of position the Senate would confirm quickly, as it’s in everyone’s interest to have a confirmed defense secretary.”
Government watchdogs are also wary of the number of department chiefs, including acting secretaries, who worked in the private sector for industries their agencies now regulate.
Currently, the heads of the EPA and the Departments of Defense, Interior, and Health and Human Services all previously worked as industry lobbyists or as executives for corporations who have business before their departments.
“I understand the thinking that you want people who understand the impact of the work the agency is doing, but I think you can do that without having people with extensive conflicts of interest in leadership positions,” Hempowicz said. “It blurs the line of what the agency’s priorities are.”
Hempowicz acknowledged that Trump has taken a liking to his acting secretaries, but said not having a permanent department head can hinder Congress’s ability to have a “clear window” into the inner workings of the agencies.
“He likes high turnover and having actings in place,” Hempowicz said of Trump. “But at the end of the day, it’s not about what’s best for the president. It’s what’s best for the agency and the country, and I would say there’s a tension there.”
